Netflix‘s new drama House of Guinness opens every episode by calling itself a “fiction inspired by true stories.” Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness really did die, leaving four twenty-something children to keep the family’s brewery business alive. Eldest son Arthur (Anthony Boyle) and youngest son Edward (Louis Partridge) really were left to divvy up the empire, which soon expanded worldwide, as Guinness signs in every pub can confirm. And the Irish Catholic, or Fenian, call for home rule really did continue to build momentum, boiling over into a civil war in the early 20th century.

**Spoilers for House of Guinness, now streaming on Netflix**

Okay, but surely the Guinness family’s foreman Rafferty (James Norton) wasn’t busting skulls to Kneecap songs in the streets of 1860s Dublin? Or hooking up with multiple important women in the Guinness family on the sly? How true can the events of House of Guinness really be?

According to series creator Steven Knight, it’s pretty gosh darn true, including many of the more incredulous storylines in the show.

“True events are more weird and strange and bonkers than things that you could ever make up,” Knight said. “For example, Arthur’s attempt to rig an election using train tickets and wardrobes with holes cut in the back. It’s true. It’s all true. Yeah, you wouldn’t dare make that up.”

Of course, House of Guinness isn’t a documentary, but a Netflix drama. It’s full of the aforementioned modern needle drops, sexy love affairs, and soapy plot twists. Nevertheless, Knight insisted that nothing he added in terms of dramatic oomph compared to the true stories, some of which “didn’t make the cut.”

“Yeah, some things that were really crazy that didn’t make the cut, but they weren’t left up because they were crazy. Because there’s so much going on in there,” he said.

So what’s true and what’s not? Here’s everything you need to know about the true story behind House of Guinness…

House of Guinness opens on a real life event, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness’s funeral. This really happened in 1868 and it was an event that left all of Ireland wondering if the formidable businessman and politician’s four pampered kids were up to the task of keeping the brewery going.

“Bear in mind that the real people — the real Arthur, the real Edward, the real Benjamin, the real Anne — they were really young,” Steven Knight said. “They were early 20s when they get given this huge responsibility.”

Indeed, they were, and Arthur and Edward would indeed share control of the brewery and other family interests until 1876, when Arthur would sell his half of the business to Edward. Arthur would become a baron and a key political figure in the Conservative movement, while Edward oversaw the company’s expansion to American and beyond.

Former Game of Thrones baddie Jack Gleeson plays Edward’s man in America, Byron Hedges. When he arrives in New York City, Byron immediately runs afoul of the infamous Bowery Boys and is nearly killed.

“The history of Irish Immigrants in New York and how they were discriminated against, that was also, yeah, an interesting part of history that perhaps people don’t know,” Jack Gleeson said. “So it was good to represent that. Maybe people people can find out more about it.”

Over the course of House of Guinness Season 1, we watch as Arthur struggles to maintain the secret that he is gay during a time when homosexuality carried with it a potential death sentence. Early in the series, he enters a uniquely arranged marriage with Lady Olivia Hedges (Danielle Galligan).

“It was a marriage of convenience for a reason, but from the historical records that I’ve read, they actually loved each other,” Knight said, before touching upon a tumultuous love triangle the spouses find themselves in later in the series. “You know, there was real emotion. They became jealous. And I think stuff like that, as a writer of fiction, you wouldn’t do that, but the truth is stranger than fiction.”

A less scandalous part of Guinness family history that plays out in House of Guinness has to do with Anne (Emily Fairn), Aunt Agnes (Dervla Kirwan), and cousin Adelaide (Ann Skelly) pushing Arthur and Edward to commit vast amounts of the family fortune to massive charity projects.

“The Guinness legacy, as well as fantastic beer, is the work that they did,” Knight said. “There are buildings that were built by this family then that are still standing now in London and in Dublin.”

“I think it was the women who decided that here’s all his wealth, and here we are. Let’s do something good. It was a religious thing as well, but I just think they wanted to do something good.”

Unlike other succession dramas, where the siblings tear each other apart, House of Guinness ends with Arthur, Anne, Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea), and Edward coming together as a strong, supportive family unit. It’s a choice, once more, Knight pulled from history.

“I really feel that the Guinness family, in reality, they were like that,” he said, “because they had a lot of enemies. They had a lot of people who wanted them to fail, collectively. And I think that does build a kind of unity.”

“The Guinness motto is “In love, we trust.” They trust love. And at the end, they come back together and hold each other and say, ‘We love each other.'” Cheers to that.

House of Guinness is now streaming on Netflix.